Imagine the four walls around you are basically walls of blue tarp held up by tree branches. Your floor is a slab of cement if you're lucky, or a dirt floor where rats and bugs greet you at every corner as they scavenge through heaps of litter, scrap, and human waste. This is the reality of a Delhi slum.

While trafficking may feel far away, understanding our connections helps to bring the issue home. As we start our Christmas shopping, let's not forget who is on the production end of our gift purchases. Is it possible that box of chocolates was produced by children swinging machetes in cocoa plantations?

Before a room of big names like former UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright, Walmart's CEO Michael Duke, Carlos Slim, the second richest man in the world, and celebrities like Matt Damon, K'naan, and Barbra Streisand, Obama reminded his nation and the world that slavery is still very much with us. Obama called the fight against human trafficking "one of the great human rights causes of our time."